JusJoJan – Postcards from the past

So it turns out that time traveling is possible. Sort of. I got a really strange note in the mail from 15 year old Jetgirl today. (She couldn’t e-mail in 1985; I have no idea how she read my post!) Anyway, apparently she wasn’t exactly happy with me for posting her “T” poem. (ungrateful little brat.)

Dear older me,

Not to be rude, but you call that a “gift” ? I have spent a lot of time writing my heart out here, and you find THIS? This thing that I scribbled on a piece of scratch paper which contains a misspelling and makes absolutely no sense? I can’t believe that I grow up to be one of those adults who absolutely doesn’t understand anything. Not only that, but you publish it for the whole world to see? Dang. I thought Mother was bad about “volunteering” me for stuff and embarrassing me in front of strangers. Don’t you get that I’m a shy girl? You of all people should know that. What happened to you? A…what did you call that thing…a blog? What a horrible word. Sounds like what Becky’s cat did on the carpet last weekend. Gross. And Totally weird. Why couldn’t you at least put one of the poems that is actually good? Who’s going to be reading this, exactly? Yes, I think I can be a writer some day! But I thought that’s what *you* would be. Airplanes? Weird. At least you ended up with a cute guy. The French stuff is pretty cool too. But next time? Ask me first. And pick something that isn’t totally awful.

Sincerely,

15 year old you

Well! What am I supposed to make of that???

Dear 15-year old me,

“Not to be rude”, but I finished going through that box and I couldn’t really find any more of your stuff. So maybe you didn’t like it that much either. Luckily, you kept on trying, so I found some of your later writings. Because I am you, I have the right to decide which, if any, of your future writings might be worth publishing. And I get to tell you something about your future. Cool, huh? The only bad part about it is that, at least from my viewpoint, I’m telling it to you after it’s too late for you to do anything to change it. I really hate time travel and paradoxes. Crazy stuff, that. So on that note, stop wishing for a DeLorean. It doesn’t work. I can tell you that there will be two more Back to the Future movies, and in the second one, Doc and Marty go to 2015. Speaking from 2015, they got it all wrong. Which doesn’t matter because all three films were awesome.

So, no, you don’t become a writer. In fact, you become a music teacher, find out that you don’t really like working with kids, and then you become a pilot. You’ll find that more intriguing once you read a couple of airplane stories by Richard Bach when you are a senior in High School. Yes, airplanes are greasy. But you’re way better at flying them than you were at teaching music. FWIW your teaching skills weren’t wasted because you were a pretty good Flight Instructor if I do say so myself.

So this “blog” (and you’re right, it’s a horrible sounding word) is my way of making it up to you that I never tried to write anything outside of school. It’s free, it’s fun, and I get to make up all the rules. Which is great because I have no idea what tense to write in at the moment, or what person to use when writing.

Yes, the French stuff is cool. You will take one year of French in High School, where you will not learn one iota of French. And you will regret that. If I could, I’d tell you to be more proactive when you tell your parents that you want to go to that piano masterclass in Italy your Senior year. You should save all your money for it as soon as you hear about it. Then you should make an intelligent argument to the parental units about how important it could be for you to expand your horizons, and how this class could look great on future resumés and applications. You should also not procrastinate or “forget” or whatever it was that made you somehow fail to apply for and participate in Red Bird’s month long writing workshop when you are in college. You might have really gotten something out of that.

Anyway, I don’t know how you’re reading this, but maybe I’ll find something in “your” box which might be interesting to my readers. We’ll see. Thanks for your note. Good luck with your writing, but for heaven’s sake stop writing all that whiny, sappy I-wish-I-was-a-deep-philosophical-person-but-all-I-am-really-writing-about-is-how-I-wish-I-had-a-boyfriend-but-since-I-don’t-I’m just-going-to-write-some-pseudo-melancholic-drivel. It’s not becoming. First of all, you’re not really melancholy. You don’t know how to be. Nothing truly sad has ever happened to you. Stop being selfish and look around you. Get to know people. Try to be more witty in your writing. Trust me, it’ll be better. I think maybe you could be witty.